Martin Amis criticises the Royal family because he's met them in the flesh

Martin Amis has just got into hot water for telling a French magazine that the Royal family are philistines, and that the Queen didn't listen to him when he met her over lunch, because "she is not supposed to understand the remarks that one makes to her."

"Her only reaction was to look far away, vaguely staring at a painting on the wall. That's all. Another time, I had a lunch with the Duke of Edinburgh. He was surprised by my profession: 'Oh, you’re a writer.'"

I'll bet Amis is right. Any halfway objective journalist who's met the royal family say how deeply tricky it is; that the Queen rarely moves outside the realm of the utterly innocuous.

To be fair to the Queen, she has little choice. Her comments are so carefully picked over by the press; and she has an overbearing obligation to stay uncontroversial and politically neutral to avoid constitutional controversy.

Throw in the fact that all the Royal family live their lives surrounded by the dazzled and the sycophantic, and you can see why it plays havoc with their conversational skills.

It's impossible to say whether they really are philistines or not. Certainly, it seems to the outside viewer that they are happier in the company of the animal kingdom than among intellectuals and artists. But, then again, animals are less likely to pass on to the press what the Queen has told them in confidence. As with politics, so with the arts – the royal family can't risk airing what they really think, for fear of the media storm that will follow. Just look at poor old Prince Charles and his comments about the beauties of ancient architecture; which, incidentally, he was spot on about.

Of course, if you do happen to meet them, the chances are that they are pretty unremarkable as individuals. Take most random people from a crowd, and they're unlikely to be thrillingly interesting. The royal family only really exert anything approaching a mythical pull if you keep them at a distance.

As Amis himself says of the royal wedding, in the interview, ""Usually, when the crowd descends on the street, it's to find windows to break. Now, the crowd will be standing outside passively. It's difficult not to be moved by this enthusiasm. It's difficult not to think about it in a positive way."

That is the strange mystique of royalty – a group of people who, individually, are pretty ordinary; but who, as an institution, drip-fed into our lives since birth, still have a weird power to seduce the population on an unmatched scale.